Steel by Carrie Vaugh

If you feel marooned in a sea of high drama and disturbing dystopian fiction, look to Carrie Vaugh’s Steel to throw you an action adventure life line. If you have reached the part of your summer where you just want a good adventure full of pirates, swashbuckling adventure and heroism, this is your book.

After coming in fourth and just missing the opportunity to compete in the National Fencing Championships, Jill is frustrated and wondering if she should even continue training. Her family takes advantage of the break in the schedule to vacation in the Bahamas. While walking on the beach, 16 year old Jill finds a mysterious sword shard. With this broken sword piece in her pocket, a tourist boat cruise runs into foul weather and puts Jill over the side and into the ocean. When she surfaces it is in the 18^th century. Pulled from the ocean by a crew of pirates, Jill joins their adventure under the leadership of their captain, Marjory Cooper. Jill’s training as a fencer comes in handy as she makes her way among real pirates of the Caribbean. Jill becomes entangled in a pirate feud between Marjory and Blane, an evil pirate up to no good. A cursed sword with supernatural powers leads to cruel secrets. The danger of the more nasty pirates is balanced by the sweet kind, smile of Henry, who teaches Jill the ways of being a pirate on the ship Diana. Steel is a great adventure full of interesting characters set against the backdrop of Caribbean piracy in the 1700’s.

Rotters by Daniel Kraus

Joey’s whole life changed the day his mother was hit by a city bus and killed. Joey had lived a sheltered, protected life with his mom in Chicago focused on getting good grades and playing jazz on his trumpet. After her death, Joey is sent to live with his father, a mysterious man known in his local community as the Garbage man. Joey’s misery in this new version of his life is complete. Abused by his new classmates and teachers alike, Joey finds no sympathy, in fact, no interaction with his father at all. Joey is forced to walk miles to school. He eats nothing for days and sleeps on the floor of a strange shack with neither television nor phone service. Joey comes to discover his father’s trade. His father is part of a hidden community of Diggers, people who rob graves secretly in the middle of the night. Over time, his father accepts him as an apprentice. Joey learns the family trade, and accepts the rules of a secret society of Diggers. Joey becomes engaged in a continuously more perilous journey that entangles him in a brutal family rivalry, dangerous feuds, exposes him to the risk of detection, threatens his life and costs him three fingers. Overall, Joey will learn a power before unknown.

  

This book was by turns both brutal and mesmerizing. It is horrific. But truly, the most frightening thing about this story isn’t the disruption of graves, or people being hunted in the dark. What is truly most terrifying about this book is the brutal way people treat each other. In the current literary frenzy of zombies, vampires, werewolves, and monster hunters, this book looks at the monsters that live inside of us: the craving for acceptance, the desire for power, the ability to influence others. Rotters explores relationships between Joey and is classmates (brutal and humiliating) his teachers (adversaries and mentors alike) and explores an ever changing relationship with a father he has only just recently met. Joey’s descent into emotional disaster is swift. But what rings true is his strength of spirit. Joey’s character arc is strong and ultimately satisfying. Rotters is a frightening look at both human nature and humanity. Joey passes through a gruesome, terrifying, burning cauldron to discover his own worth and his own humanity. The ride is by turns thrilling, terrifying, and haunting.

Rotters strikes familiar chords. While Rotters is tale all its own, readers may want to read other books with similar themes. Joey's complete isolation as a social outcast is similar to that felt by Xing in Crossing. The theme of music mingles through Rotters like it does in Crossing, Ten Miles Past Normal and Revolution. Joey’s obsessing with details in moments of stress, termed "specifying" by his mother and accepted as part of him connects with Kendall's OCD in Cryer’s Cross. 

Darkness Becomes Her by Kelly Keaton

Ari Selkirk has been on her own for much of her 17 years. Given up in infancy by her mother, Ari has lived with one foster care parent after another. The current set, Casey and Butch, care for her and worry about her. They have taught her much about the family trade: bail bondsmen. As a result, Ari can take care of herself: wield a gun, drop a two hundred pound aggressor. All of these skills become useful as she investigates the mysteries of her parents and a family curse.  Ari discovers a box of her mother’s things after visiting Rocquemore House where her mother had been institutionalized for delusions of snakes living under her scalp. Before giving Ari up and committing suicide, Ari’s mom left her the box of items including a letter addressed to Ari. The message: RUN! Following the discovery of the box, Ari is attacked in her hotel parking lot by a tall, blonde supernaturally fast stranger. When Ari stabs him, defending herself with his own mysterious blade, he hovers off the ground, turns to smoke and disappears. The attack, the box, and the family curse that kills its women at 21 propel Ari to New 2. This new manifestation of New Orleans is a haven for outsiders, misfits and the supernatural. Forsaken by the USA after it was devastated by hurricane, New Orleans was purchased by nine wealthy families now known as the Novem. Drawn to New 2 for possible information about her father, Ari meets a house full of young people like herself who have supernatural powers. Among them is the mysterious, dangerous, alluring Sebastian. Ari has lived her whole life with unusual. Her eyes are an extraordinary color of teal. Her hair is the color of moonlight and waist long, no matter her efforts to change it. But what she finds in New 2 is beyond any of her imagining.

Sprinkled with mature language and including an intense assault sequence, Darkness Becomes Her is for mature readers. It is a wild thrill ride of a book. Ari is an intensely powerful protagonist who struggles with some mean bad stuff in a situation full of the supernatural, voodoo, witches, vampires, and elements of Greek Mythology brought to life. Readers who enjoy the supernatural, connections to mythology and tough, strong, powerful heroines will find much to enjoy.

The Water Wars by Cameron Stracher

If you loved The Hunger Games and miss the thrill, The Water Wars is one to put on your summer reading list. Vera lives in a future where North America has been politically reorganized due to wars generated my water crises. Water, not oil, has become the commodity that rules the world. The Chinese are harnessing and capturing the rain before it leaves the clouds. Mega corporations are hoarding water. Environmental terrorists are fighting water pirates for access to impossibly small amounts of water. Those that can divine water make millions and live like kings. Vera and her brother Will hack out an existence with their father until the day that Vera meets Kai. Mysterious, wealthy, and completely unconcerned about water, Kai fascinates Vera then disappears. Vera believes Kai has been kidnapped for his ability to locate water where others believe there is none. Diabetic and in need of insulin, Kai's life hangs in the balance. Vera convinces her brother the two should go look for Kai. Vera and Will embark on adventure that will see them captured by water pirates, rescued by an ultra environmentalist and dangerously cross multiple borders. Vera is a strong female heroine who encourages both sympathy and cheers. While The Water Wars is a read-a-like to The Hunger Games and likely to appeal to the same readers, it is less dark and gruesome. A great roller coaster ride of a read. The Water Wars will appeal to all of those looking for a fast, adventurous read.  

While you are at it, two others you may want to consider are Incarceron  by Catherine Fisher and The Maze Runner by James Dashner. Both pair nicely with The Hunger Games and The Water Wars in the post apocalyptic adventure to survive collection.